Those rumours about a takeover of ABN Amro refuse to go away, at least among Financial News readers.

Last week the bank topped our readers’ poll as the financial institution most likely to be taken over this year. This week the prospect of the bank merging with – or being taken over by – Barclays was the most popular choice in our poll as a fantasy M&A deal.

Just under half our readers said they would most like to see a deal between the two European banks, four times the number who wanted to see British Airways and Continental Airlines of America tie up, the second most popular choice.

Arguably the most likely deal – Aviva and Prudential – came third, scoring 12%. Arguably the least likely deal – between Vodafone and the BBC – was only a few votes behind, which suggests either our readers believe the UK government is about to reinvent its takeover policy, or that they were drunk.

Bottom of the pile – the least likely M&A deal of our fantasy selection – was between Telecom Italia and MTS – at only 5%.